Gaza Belt Leaders May Boycott Special Government Session

Government will hold its session in the south, but not in the area that was hardest hit in the war.

By Gil Ronen

First Publish: 8/30/2014, 11:14 PM

Binyamin Netanyahu visits the Sderot train station

Flash 90

Local government leaders in the Gaza Belt region may boycott a special government session Sunday that is to be held in southern Israel.

According to Israeli TV Channel 2, the special session was originally planned to take place in the Sderot municipality. However, this idea was shot down because Sderot's mayor, Alon Davidi, attacked Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon during the war, calling him “a minister without security” (as opposed to the Hebrew version of his title, which means “minister of security”), deriding him as “limp” and saying that he should resign.

An unnamed defense establishment source said that Davidi “spoke in a bullying fahion toward the entire defense establishment.”

A second possibility that was reportedly raised was to hold the session in the Eshkol Regional Council, but that was cancelled because the Council Head, Haim Yellin, was also fiercely critical of the Gaza operation, and said among other things – “in this war, I buried my friends, and my trust in the government.”

It was therefore decided to hold the session at the Hof Ashkelon municipality – but most of the communities in the Hof Ashkelon region are not Gaza Belt communities, and are out of the range of Hamas mortar attacks.

For this reason, the Gaza Belt leaders may opt not to show up for the session.

The Prime Minister's Office said in response that the session is not being held in Sderot because the Prime Minister is going to open the school year there. The Defense Minister's Bureau said that Yaalon “will go to wherever the session is held.”